Check Their Background!

When a furniture retailer is interested in hiring a sales promotion company, one of the most important things to do is to check out any company you are interested in hiring. Just like a bank checks your credit before giving you a loan, a retailer should do their own due diligence on each company before signing on the dotted line and paying someone for these services. There are some simple techniques you can employ to do this:

1. Check their rating with the Better Business Bureau. You can go to http://www.bbb.org and type in the business name, city, and state of their headquarters location. The BBB will give them a rating based on many factors, and a history of any complaints will be on their website as well.

2. Check to see of any lawsuits with former clients or states’ Attorneys General. One simple way to do this is Google the name of the company and “lawsuits”. You can also check http://www.furnituretoday.com/ for any articles about company lawsuits. Also, most states have their own judicial websites you can search for lawsuits and even see copies of any filings to read about details of any lawsuits.

3. Get many references, including a few years worth of dated letters of recommendation so you know they are recent, and make sure that these are people you can call to discuss their experience. Many times, if they have a lot of recommendations, there will be people you know and trust that you can talk to. Make sure to not only discuss sales and profit results, but extra salespeople the company brings in, the sale’s manager, and expenses during the event.

Just remember, you are hiring someone to come into your store that you have worked hard to build yourself. You do not want to bring in just any sales promotion company. You want to bring in a company that fits your store perfectly to maximize your success and keep your reputation in tact. Doing some simple ‘due diligence’ can help you hire the right company for the job, and keep you away from poor operators that make big promises, but at the end of the day, don’t deliver the goods.